Sri Lanka

Something were rolling down my cheek when I finally heard music. It was the first time in ten days. I heard every single tone of the computerized composition in a way I had never heard it before. I had just sat down at a café and ordered a cup of freshly brewed coffee. It was the first cup I’ve had in ten days but I felt more alert, pure and healthy than ever before. At harmony and peace but a little out of place though. Like as if I wasn’t used to being around people any more. Not used to be seeing the traffic outside the window, hearing all these sounds. Everything felt so intense. Just normal interactions, the smells and everything I saw. I could take notice of every single detail of the in the room where I was sitting. I felt like I could observe everything with quick first glance. All my sensations were screaming for stimulation. I had been in silence for ten days now. Meditating ten hours every day. The coffee was so intensively enjoyable. The best coffee I could remember ever had. I gratefully told the waiter so and let him know that I just came out from a vipassana. He replied with that he knew what I was talking about and asked if I would like to hear some music and went to turn on the radio. it was like I was coming back.

Some of us are that kind of people who travels just for the sake of it. We want to go everywhere eventually, so it doesn’t really matter where to go next. When I went to Sri Lanka it was because I happened to be in India and my visa was about to expire. So why not apply for a visa to Sri Lanka and just go there as well. I had no plans but ended up spending almost three months in Sri Lanka. I traveled through the central and southern part but I wasn’t rushing it. This post is because I would like to share my experience from traveling in this lovely country. I wish I could keep it brief. Below is a link to were you apply for a tourist visa to Sri Lanka. It is an easy process.

Click here to apply for a tourist visa for Sri Lanka

Arriving in Sri Lanka after having been in India for a couple of months felt like a relief. I was respectfully greeted at the airport by the immigration officer who checked my passport, smiled and didn’t ask any questions (completely the opposite from in India). Everybody seemed so happy, quiet and respectful. Even the taxi drivers outside the airport, trying to get customers, were nice and calm. Very respectful. My first destination in Sri Lanka was the town Negombo, which is a great start of your visit in this country. I had met a Dutch couple already on the airport in India, that were going to spend their honey moon in Sri Lanka. They had their holidays well planned and had done some research, which I had not.

They told me to stay away from Colombo and come with them straight to Negombo from the airport instead. That’s how I even got to know about this town Negombo. You see this is the way I often travel. I go with the flow and try to take it as it comes. I believe this is a good way to go about it when you are traveling in general. Especially if you are traveling on your own, like I was most of the time. That’s when it works out best to be a drifter. Ride the wave wherever it may take you.

I spend my first few days in Negombo mostly relaxing at a chilled out hostel. It wasn’t really much to mention about that. A simple place. I needed some time off. Traveling can be exhausting. Sometimes you need a holiday from your holidays. I went for long walks in the day time, spending time taking photos. Sometimes I went for a swim in the warm ocean. The beach was just a couple of minutes by foot from the hostel where I was staying, but it was not exactly the perfect beach. Not perfectly cleaned.

There wasn’t a lot of people using the beach this time of the year (November). Mostly a couple of local tourist workers, either wanting to sell something or taking you out in a sail boat or so. They were certainly up for a chat and wouldn’t just be interested in selling stuff. They seemed like they wanted to get to know the few tourists that passed by. I went out for nice dinners in the evenings. Hung around with other travelers to share and listen to travel stories. I met one cool guy that been out backpacking for two years and had some interesting stories to shar from his travels in Africa.

Around the corner from the hostel there was an art gallery and the artist running the place was speechless. We were writing notes to each other while I admired his paintings. I wasn’t going to buy anything. I was traveling and didn’t have space for such things in my bag. But I found his art very inspiring and I ended up buying some canvas, paint and brushes and started to paint at the hostel where I was staying. I ended up using the painting as a way to pay for my stay. It ended up on the wall next to a lot of other paintings. The people working there were really nice. I appreciated that they allowed me to do that. I guess I wasn’t the first painter who stayed at that hostel.

After these first few days in Negombo had I made some new friends and I joined three girls from Russia to share a taxi and to go with them inland. It was a few hours ride, which we started early in the morning. I think I spent about one week together with them. Traveling around and seeing nice places on the island together was awesome. I was expecting to be traveling by train or busses but it turned out being cheaper and easier to hire a car and a driver. At least if you were four people sharing it.

The Dutch couple that I arrived in Negombo together with, rented a Tuk-Tuk which they were to drive around on the island for a month. Sri Lanka surprisingly enough have very nice roads and the traffic isn’t bad at all. People seem to be driving carefully here. At least compared to in India. It is a very respectful country in general. More civilized then I expected. I would see people having a mix of symbols and decorations from different religions set up in their cars, at hotel receptions, restaurants and a little bit here and there. For example many times I saw little temples with a statue of Shiva, a statue of Buddha and a statue of Jesus, all together. It makes me feel like they have understood that we are all the same kind of beings. One spirit. The Sri Lankans seem to be a very accepting people.

The driver stayed with us for a several days and he told us all sort of things about the country. About the history and the politics and about the people working on the rise fields that earned less than a dollar a day. He was almost like a guide, but still he wasn’t a guide. He almost became one of us. He was nice and trustworthy. It was good to have a local guy driving us to see some of the famous places in Sri Lanka. When we passed a Buddhist temple he put his hands together in a greeting. I asked if he was Buddhist and he replied that he was catholic but that he likes and respects the temples and all religions.

A famous place that we visited was the Buddhist cave temple in Dambulla. There I met some mysterious person who were reading my hand palm and told me to drink more water. It is impressive to see the massive statues of Buddha inside of the mountain. The visiting people gets a blessing from the monks who chants and tie a white string around their wrists. I was told that mine was a blessing from Vishnu.

One of the most famous places on the island is Sigiriya and its impressive Lions Rock. It is a huge rock like a square block sticking up from the ground about 200 meter. It is known for its looks that are slightly comparable with a lion laying down. It is not very much alike, but that’s what it got its name from. And it has the feet of the lion carved out on one side in it and it use to be a the headquarter for an old king. Up here no enemies could reach him and his harem. But we got to experience that the rain can come quick and hard here. For that you have no shelter up there on the rock. At least not now a days, believe me. One of the most intense rain I ever experienced.

And also, just before that rain came, I almost got arrested for taking a photo of a three thousand year old wall painting depicting a lady with large breasts. I was lucky and got away after a long and serious chat with some police officers that eventually thought I seemed to be a good guy and let me go. They said several times that I was a very lucky guy to get to travel with these three good looking tall blond Russian girls.

After a visit at Sigiriya, a suitable next good place to visit in Sri Lanka, if you are coming from the west part of the island, would be Polonnaruwa. It is an ancient royal city full of temples and castles, stupas, marketplaces, bath pools and everything you can imagine in ruins and heritages from a city fully populated about 800 years ago. But which now is a moss covered open air museum.

We stayed at hotels where monkeys were running around in the corridors at night. The driver took us to some amazing places on the roads off the beaten track, which we wouldn’t have found on our own. A restaurant in the jungle with a ceiling made out of leaves where they served local dishes from jars placed on open fire.

He also took us to a place where they sold alternative herbal based pharmacuticals. The guy that had the shop there were like a medicine man and he had a product for any sort of health problem.

By the time we got to Kandy I left the girls and went for this ten day Vipassana silent meditation retreat. This is where I was meditating for ten hours a day for ten days. It was something I had heard about for the first time a couple of years earlier when I was in Myanmar. I had been seriously thinking of doing it since I came to Sri Lanka, but It’s not specifically something you do in Sri Lanka, you can find these kind of places all over the world. You can find places and book it in through this website.

In connection to Polonnaruwa there is also some massive carvings out of the mountains with statues depicting Buddah, which are at least ten meters tall.

Click here to sign up for a ten day meditation course and silent retreat anywhere in the world.

When I came out from the retreat, I moved in to a hostel in Kandy which had some nice potential but wasn’t really well managed at the moment. I decided to be volunteering there for a few weeks. I felt like slowing down and hold up from traveling for a while. I wanted to stay in the moment and get to know the surroundings. I could tell that they could do with some help at this place. I would be sitting on the terrace writing for a few hours every day and be welcoming other guests when they arrived to this hostel. . I would be doing a little bit of cleaning and buy some breakfast to share with the other guests in the mornings. I did some exercise and practiced some meditation there on the terrace and sometimes I would go for long walks, either on my own or with some other travelers from the hostel. hoste I also made numbers for each bed at the hostel to make it easier for the guy running the place to plan which guest should sleep in what bed. Because that was always a confusing moment in the evenings.

There was a lack of structure at this hostel when I arrived there. For example it could happen that some people arrived with a booking but there was no beds left for them. Most of the time there was no hard feelings and these easy going low budget travelers would be happy to crash on a sofa or just sleep on the floor. At one occasion some guests put up their tent on the floor in the sleeping dorm. At this place I met so many cool travelers that were coming and going during my stay.

made a lot of friends by staying here and seeing these people coming and going. I can’t be writing about all of them. But for example there were one guy from Cyprus that was talking about spirituality for a few hours every morning. A Dutch guy that I was talking a lot of psyched out ideas with. We were discussing deep philosophy and sience fiction ideas every day. The sense of wonder was great. Traveling groups of friends and couples from Ireland, Gernamy, Spain, Sweden, USA came and left with big smiles on their faces and there was also a really loose guy from Australia who had some crazy stories to share.

I made a lot of friends by staying here and seeing these people coming and going. I can’t be writing about all of them. But for example there were one guy from Cyprus that was talking about spirituality for a few hours every morning. A Dutch guy that I was talking a lot of psyched out ideas with. We were discussing deep philosophy and sience fiction ideas every day. The sense of wonder was great. Traveling groups of friends and couples from Ireland, Gernamy, Spain, Sweden, USA came and left with big smiles on their faces and there was also a really loose guy from Australia who had some crazy stories to share.

The most commonly visited tourists attractions in Kandy are for example the view point from the big Buddha statue or the Sri Dalada Maligawa, which is known as The Temple of The Tooth, where they claim to have a relic from Siddharta Gautama, the person that became known as Buddha. They have his tooth in a stupa there. But you can’t see it. It is covered by this stupa which have protect it for ages

Kandy is a small Asian city or town, which has some traffic and dirt to it as they all have. It is not only pretty buildings and it can be raining quite a lot in October, November. Personally I liked the place but some tourists doesn’t really want to stay that long. There is a lot of other places on the island worth spending a lot more time in. But it is a nice walk around the lake there for example.

If you walk around the lake you should visit the very special hotel Helga’s Folly up the hill for a coffee or a glass of wine. It is a hotel where lots of artists have been staying for a longer time to be engaged in painting and the whole house is decorated in a theme as a mix of Alice in Wonderland and Halloween. It is not a that cheap place to stay at though. But worth a short visit. Here is a link to it on TripAdvisor. Check it out if you’re interested.

Helga’s Folly

After a few weeks in Kandy I started to get a little restless again and decided to join a couple of brits for some further traveling. It was time to move on again. We took the railway towards Ella. The railway from Sri Lanka to Ella is a must if you are visiting Sri Lanka. It is known as the most beautiful railway in the world. And it is because of a reason.

It was a highlight during my trip. It takes you over the hills and through the mountains, up over 2000m over sea level with amazing views over tea plantations. It is a slow ride and the doors are open so you can hang out from the side of the train as it is going, to feel the fresh air in your hair. You can sit and dangle your legs out through the open door over maintain walls. This is what people do.

We stopped along the way somewhere in the middle of the inland jungle by mountains and lakes, to do a pilgrimage up to the top of a mountain. A peak known as Adam’s Peak. Or Buddhas Peak. Or Shivas Peak. Depending on what religion you have. Again, this kind of acceptance and tolerance for all sort of religions seem to be something very important and obvious in Sri Lanka

Not just respecting others religions but also applying them. That was a beautiful thing. It is more of an open minded mentality rather than a strict belief. We woke up 2 o´clock in the morning to start the little pilgrimage which was a 4 hour hike up to the top of the mountain where we met the sunrise and an amazing view to share where the morning fog clouds down in the valleys looked like lakes from above. I will never forget about it.

Ella was another beautiful little village we arrived at the next day with our legs in pain. It is built up on the tourism for the stunning surrounding nature. Here you come for hiking, water falls, tea factories etc. But still there is a night life in the village. The bars and restaurants are open 24/7.

After a few days in Ella, we booked a driver and car to take us down to the coast. We shared it with some other guys that were on their way to a safari. I tagged along with the British guys to rent a villa and stayed there with the boys for about one day and one night only.

They had some more friends from back home that were catching up with them and they also stayed at the villa. They were another couple that had quit their jobs back home to go traveling. I decided to get my own place a couple of kilometers away down in Mirizza.

The town Mirizza is known for its surfing. Here I again met a lot of the people which had been staying at the hostel in Kandy during the time I was there. The Dutch Guy was hanging around, a French couple I knew was still there and a Swedish couple were walking along the streets with surf boards under their arms when I came passing by on a scooter. They thought the wave height had been low recently.

Mirizza is just another small town but a huge centre along the south coast for tourism. It is a lot about the surfing. I rented a nice room with a small balcony and private bathroom in a big nice house with marble floor, high ceiling and mighty pillars. It was like a little mansion. The rooms were rented out separately and there were big terraces and a kitchen as common space for all the guests. It was all very well looked after and taken care of. I enjoyed the view from the huge, top balcony in front of the building, where I use to sit and write for days.

Next door the Dutch guy were staying. We all caught up and went out partying on the beach together at nights. There were some nice restaurants on this long, shallow, fine sanded, white beach and every night there was at least one venue which had a party. This beach was definitely better than the one I was on in Negombo.

When it comes to the food in Sri Lanka I can definitely recommend the common local dishes; Kottu and Roti. Roti is some great tringle shaped spring roll kind of thing, which you can get everywhere and is perfect to grab together with a couple of beers when you are on the go. In India they also have Roti, but it is something different. There it is just a round, boring bread. Kottu is a simple meal made out of this bread which is cut into small slice pieces (It makes the carbs of the meal instead of rice) and it is mixed with vegetables, egg and/or meat/chicken. It is probably to most common and simple food you can get. It is full of flavors but not that spicy. The pieces of roti bread in it almost tastes like paste, but better and it often comes with a very nice chili paste sauce on side. And that is what makes it so good. Love their chili paste. The food is very cheap as well. You can hear where they are making this kottu easily, because they smash the bread violently with big metal knives against the metal frying table.

The noise is extremely loud and very annoying since it goes on constantly and you can’t hear anything ells. I can’t believe that they are doing this at almost every restaurant. I guess it is a method to attract the ones that know how good it is, but then get rid of the customers as soon as they finished eating. And it really works. Even though it was painful for my ears I couldn’t resist it. I had this stuff every day for lunch. I still miss it. I later asked a colleague of mine who is a great chef, to make this. He read up on it and got everything needed and proudly presented it. But it was nothing like it. He made it taste like Indian food. Which is something completely different.

After a few days I moved on down to a cheap place just outside the next village along the coast. There the waves were a little higher. I stayed at a “yoga, meditation and surf hostel”. That’s what I did in the mornings and day times during my stay there. I practicing Yoga, meditation and went out surfing. I spent quite a lot of time writing in the evenings during my stay here also. The conversations I overheard every evening when I was writing, were always all about surfing. I spent my days along that coast strip for about a week or two before I moved on to Galle for a couple of days. I didn’t really get to know Galle very well. I found it a little difficult to grip for a short visit but I didn’t really give it a good chance before I moved further up to Colombo. Same thing with Colombo. I didn’t really stay there long enough to get to know the place well. By now I was on my way to fly back to India. I was hoping to be able to visit some sort of museum or monument at least, of the great writer Arthur C. Clark who lived and was active in Colombo. But I didn’t get to see anything like that. I was busy writing my own stuff during my couple of days there. I must say that Sri Lanka was a very inspiring place to work from. I was writing quite a lot of material which I remember that I felt happy about. Hopefully one day it will be published together with some other material I’ve written ells where on my travels. Or maybe I need to get back there just to write again. It’s a valid reason.

A lot of the people I have met that traveled in Sri Lanka have described it as “India Light”. I can understand what they mean but to me Sri Lanka is nothing like India. Maybe more like a weird mix between India and Thailand perhaps. But it is its own thing. The people in Sri Lanka are very nice and careful and they love westerners. Not like the Indians, who also love westerners, but they don’t have as nice manors as the Sri Lankans. A friend of mine was in Sri Lanka recently. He told me that he didn’t like it. He said that he found it annoying that people wouldn’t let him be. I was surprised to hear that. I didn’t feel that at all. But on the other hand I had been in India just before I came to Sri Lanka. So I told him. Wait until you get to India.